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I will say I'm an anti-Zionist. I have much problems with the policies of Israel. I have problems with the argument that just because something been around for 60 years that in itself is justification for continuing. But I don't really like the extreme blanket 'all or nothing' wording of the poll. It seems oversimplified considered the tangled issue.

I also have problems with the fact our country and foreign policy is supposed to be secular and yet our government's own administration says almost ad verbatim that Israel and the US have spiritual ties or basically has a vested interest in protecting the concept of Jerusalem. Does no one else see how problematic that is?

I wish I could be more articulate on the topic (and I do have a few friends who are much more well-versed in debate around Zionism and Israel's policies)
but unfortunately my overall knowledge is limited. I'll admit that freely.

But something about trying to starve and raze Palestine to the ground and turn it into a 3rd world backwater and international pariah of brown people, basically trying to beat the people into submission -- using a military state against a rag tag group of displaced peoples -- something about these things just do not and never will sit right with me.

Whenever I see the equivalent of tanks and ak-47s used against people throwing rocks and running, I'm generally inclined to be on the side of the people with rocks.

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I wonder if we have any strong anti-Zionists on the forum who just don't want to stir anything up or are just disinterested in debating here. It's generally hard to find a vocal anti-Zionist in 'mainstream settings', except for maybe on the UC Berkeley campus. (Hahahahahaha).

I notice there are a lot votes for 'neither/no opinion' and so far no one who's answered seems to have gone into a detailed passionate response for or against.

This issue, btw, is surprisingly a good litmus test for dividing up liberals.

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” ― Oscar Wilde

I will say I'm an anti-Zionist. I have much problems with the policies of Israel. I have problems with the argument that just because something been around for 60 years that in itself is justification for continuing. But I don't really like the extreme blanket 'all or nothing' wording of the poll. It seems oversimplified considered the tangled issue.

I also have problems with the fact our country and foreign policy is supposed to be secular and yet our government's own administration says almost ad verbatim that Israel and the US have spiritual ties or basically has a vested interest in protecting the concept of Jerusalem. Does no one else see how problematic that is?

I wish I could be more articulate on the topic (and I do have a few friends who are much more well-versed in debate around Zionism and Israel's policies)
but unfortunately my overall knowledge is limited. I'll admit that freely.

But something about trying to starve and raze Palestine to the ground and turn it into a 3rd world backwater and international pariah of brown people, basically trying to beat the people into submission -- using a military state against a rag tag group of displaced peoples -- something about these things just do not and never will sit right with me.

Whenever I see the equivalent of tanks and ak-47s used against people throwing rocks and running, I'm generally inclined to be on the side of the people with rocks.

------------
I wonder if we have any strong anti-Zionists on the forum who just don't want to stir anything up or are just disinterested in debating here. It's generally hard to find a vocal anti-Zionist in 'mainstream settings', except for maybe on the UC Berkeley campus. (Hahahahahaha).

I notice there are a lot votes for 'neither/no opinion' and so far no one who's answered seems to have gone into a detailed passionate response for or against.

This issue, btw, is surprisingly a good litmus test for dividing up liberals.

I hear that, but Israel has been willing to pullout of contested areas if they can ensure that those areas aren't used for attacking civilians. What ends up happening (and is happening right now) is that terrorists groups like Hamas target civilians with rockets, suicide bombers, and lately gunmen in seminaries, to which Israel retaliates in effort to stop the attacks. I'll admit though that I'm not always comfortable with either party's retaliation efforts. Terrorists groups target civilians. Although Israel does not target civilians, it seems to make sloppy military decisions that ignore civilian casualities, or sees them as acceptable collateral damage. I do think, though, that blaming Israel's tactical decisions without mentioning terrorism is...unbalanced.

Do you see our overthrow of Mossadegh an act of terrorism? Who was a west leaning secular leader of Iran (which was a constitutional democracy) before we ousted him and put in a corrupt monarchy (the Shah). Do you see the Iranians overthrowing a US backed puppet government as terrorism?

Do you see invading Iraq under false pretenses an act of terrorism. When you carpet bomb a civilian population, do you consider that an act of terrorism? Do you see the Russia-Texas example above as terrorism?

Or is terrorism to you, only when small scale killing occurs, like blowing up a bus or a disco?

Do you see that your entire response was an elaborate strawman?

Do you see that dissonance is choosing between Israel and terrorists, not the US and terrorists?

Do you see a difference between Israeli military policy and American military policy?

And finally, do you see a difference between deliberately targeting civilians and targeting terrorists?

I think that Israel has a right to exist as a nation, but I'm very uncomfortable with the pro-Israel lobby in the USA. I don't entirely understand why our foreign policy is so favorable toward Israel and why we send so much aid to a wealthy nation, apart from the value of having an ally in the Middle East.

I fear that much of it comes from a sort of "thought terrorism" that comes from the ADL and other like-minded organizations. They have the term "anti-Semite" as their secret weapon, and manage to reframe every criticism of Israel into an ad hominem attack on Jews. Being branded as an anti-Semite is a very big deal in a very bad way in the USA. I think this is part of what Cze Cze was alluding to when she suggested that some people might be afraid to post on this topic.

I'm in favor of the two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, but sadly I don't think that even that would prevent them from trying to kill each other.

Eh, I might be cynical, but I think the US just wants a subservient, authoritarian client-state in the highest oil-producing (albeit politically unstable) part of the world.

However, it's getting us into a lot of trouble. For strategic reasons, Afghanistan isn't suitable as a kind of substitute, so maybe that's part of the reason Iraq was invaded. Talk of democracy is cheap -- historically there's no reason to believe we care at all about extending democracy.

And I think Chimp was just making a statement on the not-so-clear divisions between terrorism and state-terrorism.

Someone once said something like: a terrorist is someone who has bombs but not enough money for an air force.

Ironically (or maybe not), there's an extremely high correlation between US foreign-military aid and increases in human rights violations.

Also, many people don't see a significant difference between deliberately targeting civilians and using vastly disproportionate means of violence and killing a bunch on accident. Intent doesn't mean shit. I think they're still responsible, although I'm not prepared to quantify it and say whose "more" responsible. So maybe there is a difference, and this whole paragraph was a waste of time.

I don't think the debate is about whose more justified in killing each other, but rather it's whether or not Israel is behaving in a reasonable way. I, personally, don't think they are.

But that's just me, and I can hardly think at 2:20 AM (fucking daylight savings time!!). Sorry for random/incoherent thoughts. I'm going to bed. -nemo

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. - Jack London

I have problems with the argument that just because something been around for 60 years that in itself is justification for continuing.

In Israel's case, being around for 60 years means people have set up businesses, families, careers/job contacts, etc., and getting rid of Israel pretty much means forcing people to start over on a lot of these, which is something heavily unwanted in just about any situation.

Do you see that dissonance is choosing between Israel and terrorists, not the US and terrorists?

I'm contending the whole notion of what a terrorist is. Why is it the US and TERRORISTS or Israel and TERRORISTS. When debating the nature of these conflicts, is the losing side relegated to terrorist status?

In our attempts to kill Castro over the years and overthrow his government by force; If a Cuban national tried to blow up plane or kill one of our senators, would we call that an act of terrorism? Yes we would. Do we ever analyze our actions as terrorist? Americans never think of our actions as terrorist no matter how many governments we overthrow or people we bomb. It's never even considered. Does anyone else find this a bit Orwellian, that the person who retaliates with weaker weapons always gets the label "terrorist".

UP until the 1950's when the US tended to get involved in military conflicts when they weren't the instigator, they were called the Department of WAR. As soon as they became the instigators after WWII, the name got changed to the Department of DEFENSE. Do you see the irony here?

Originally Posted by ThatsWhatHeSaid

Do you see a difference between Israeli military policy and American military policy?

Sure there are differences, but I don't see what you're asking here. There are differences in most nations' policies. Are you saying one is more moral? or less so? Do they take different tactical steps to achieve their goals, sure.

Originally Posted by ThatsWhatHeSaid

And finally, do you see a difference between deliberately targeting civilians and targeting terrorists?

Yes I do. If I attack you first, kick you off your land, and round you up like cattle in spangled new "settlements". And the victims disagree with this and "fight" back. Who is the terrorist? The person who struck first and stole the land they lived on for thousands of years, or the people who retaliated as what they see as injustice? Why is the initial land grab never considered terrorism?

If we invade Iraq, and an Iraq comes up here and blows up buildings here, is that terrorism? While our invasion of the Iraq is not? I just think terrorism is thrown around a lot without ever asking why their "terrorizing" in the first place.

I'm contending the whole notion of what a terrorist is. Why is it the US and TERRORISTS or Israel and TERRORISTS. When debating the nature of these conflicts, is the losing side relegated to terrorist status?

In our attempts to kill Castro over the years and overthrow his government by force; If a Cuban national tried to blow up plane or kill one of our senators, would we call that an act of terrorism? Yes we would. Do we ever analyze our actions as terrorist? Americans never think of our actions as terrorist no matter how many governments we overthrow or people we bomb. It's never even considered. Does anyone else find this a bit Orwellian, that the person who retaliates with weaker weapons always gets the label "terrorist".

UP until the 1950's when the US tended to get involved in military conflicts when they weren't the instigator, they were called the Department of WAR. As soon as they became the instigators after WWII, the name got changed to the Department of DEFENSE. Do you see the irony here?

Terrorism is only when Them do it, Us are inherently incapable of such acts because of our noble nature. That is probably the most important realization if you want to understand the Western worldview, or rather the picture that the Western leaders/political and economical elite/media paint of how the world supposedly works.

Basically, statements such as "The US supports terrorism" or "The US is blocking a peace agreement" are actually oxymorons and dont make any logical sence, because the US and the rest of the enlightend West is by definition Good and concerned only with spreading their model of peace, democracy, freedom and fluffy kittens, and not at all by economic and geopolitical considerations. As that would obviously be completely ridiculous, only places of eternal darkness, like the former Evil Empire to east, are motivated by such lowly urges.

If you actually applied the definition of terrorism objectively to all acts of war/intervention that have occured after WWII, then it will become clear the the US, Israel, Britain, France and other Western powers are actually the chief sponsors and perpetrators of terrorism. However, we dont call it such because we are by definition motivated by Good and are only defending us and the clueless monkeypeople against the Evil Communists/Islamofascists/Terr'rists.

The same double speak goes on in other areas, such as when we speak of the "defence" budget and the "defence" industry, actually the examples are too numerous to count.<---- I see you now posted this too, I originally wanted to post this yesterday, but the forum kept failing.

This all serves the purpose of gaining support for aggressive, imperialist policies. It works by limiting the scope of imaginable viewpoints. So for example you have a "debate" on whether we should bomb the crap out of the terrorists or if we should starve them with sanctions. The possibility that the "terrorists" may actually have a legitimate point and we maybe should negotiate with them does not even exist, and anyone who proposes such a thing can be ridiculed as insane.